#Kiyo Alvara

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I have been given the go ahead to info dump about my OCs by @the-ethereal-god so now it’s story time with Sky, featuring those weirdos who live in my brain.

So since they’re all Pathfinder characters they’re all heroes. Technically. Some more than others. Some a lot more than others.

On a sliding scale of ‘goodness’

At the top is Umbrolus, he is a pure cinnamon roll. Too good for this world. Ignore the fact that he’d beat a man to death with their own severed limbs if they so much as considered hurting his SO or his friends. He has a teeny tiny huge temper. It’s fine we all have flaws. But other than that he’s just a big puppy.

After Umber is probably Kiyo. They have been the local doctor for the poor district of Korvosa for about 50 years, and they’ve lived in the city for over a century. They care about the city and its people and want to protect them and see them become something better than the crime filled hovel it currently is. As such, they’ve recently taken up the mantle of the vigilante Blackjack from the previous wielder, to help protect the people and give them hope. So they use their talents to protect the city they love in two forms: as a doctor caring for the sick and injured who cannot afford care elsewhere, and as a vigilante protecting the powerless and the innocent.

I think next is probably Draven. She has a bit of a hero complex. Just a little. Just ‘throw myself in front of enemy attacks and use my body as a shield to protect the innocents or my friends, with no regard for my own health and safety’ levels of self destructive hero complex. She is basically indestructible though so she can get away with it. Literally. It took a demi-god level powerful Demon Lord and three balors multiple rounds focusing all their attacks on trying to kill her to take her down, and it was her only death the entire campaign (it was the final battle). She did one thing and that was tank and she did it well.

I think next would be Roland. He was not a good person in his past, but he’s long since moved beyond that. He’s generally a good person, the quintessential stressed healer wrangling a chaotic party. He believes strongly in the ideal of redemption and that most people have the ability to become better versions of themselves, they just have to be willing to choose to put in the work to become that better self. If someone is remorseful of their actions and shows the desire to change Roland will fight for them and do everything in his power to help them see their new path through. He feels sympathy especially for those who were turned undead unwillingly and have to fight against an innate evil nature—given that he is himself an undead known as a Graveheart—and he respects those who choose to try to do good. He has helped to set up a place within the Valoria faith for these undead who want to turn towards the light.

Next would be Ileark. He’s generally a good person and does his best to always act in peoples’ best interests. He is a follower of Desna and is a strong believer in freedom, not feeling comfortable with most governing bodies or other rigid social constructs that restrict peoples’ personal freedoms. He is deeply against slavery, and slavers are one of the few things that make him truly seethingly angry. He is widely travelled and has seen every corner of the continent Avistan, and some parts of the neighboring continents. His breadth of experience makes him very personable with people from all walks of life. Ileark has healer envy for the party’s paladin, who is better at healing than him (he is a cleric with a prestige class who lost a lot of his healing abilities due to the prestige class), and he is self conscious and feels like he is a bad person because he is better at doing harm than that healing. The only character death the party has had was caused by Ileark, as he accidentally killed the party psychic—who is basically Ileark’s surrogate brother—because he’d had an infection that required using negative energy to knock him out to cure, and Ileark’s negative energy spell ended up being too powerful and flat out killed him. So he has a lot of guilt over that. Oh and also his birth mother is the goddess of night hags (and said psychic’s former goddess before he told her to fuck off and threw his unholy symbol into the ocean), and she wants Ileark to give in to her power and come to the dark side to become a night hag like her.

Next up is Lucien. He is also a Desna worshipper, but he’s less concerned with freedom and travel and more concerned with luck. He’s a gambler and an adrenaline junkie and he bases much of his philosophy off the idea that any test of luck is showing faith in Desna. Lucien doesn’t necessarily avoid doing the right thing or actively do harm (usually), but he doesn’t necessarily go out of his way to do good deeds like a lot of the people above either. He mostly just goes with the flow, lets a coin flip determine his fate, helps if there’s someone right in front of him obviously needing help, but can also oblivious to people needing his help if it isn’t directly asked of him. He isn’t always a particularly smart man, he mostly acts on his own whims with very little forethought—in fact he actively avoids thinking as much as possible because self reflection just makes him depressed and he doesn’t want to feel those things, he wants to ignore them and pretend everything is alright.

Sai is…where things start getting morally grey. Sai believes she is doing good. Her goal is to punish bad people and to protect good people. But she is very black and white in her thinking about ‘bad people’ and ‘good people’, and her methods of punishment for ‘bad people’ can range from what you’d expect from a regular adventurer to exceptionally cruel things. For example she turned a gargoyle into an insect permanently with his mind still intact and then released him into the wild to live out what he could of his inevitably short and terrified life after he killed one of the other members of the party—despite the fact that said party member came back to life afterwards.

Kaius will do anything to protect his family. And that’s a sweet nice thing that you’d expect from a hero right? Except no—he will do *anything* to protect his family. If aiding a villain is what it takes to protect his wife and daughter, he’d do it without hesitation and feel no guilt over it or any repercussions from it so long as it didn’t harm said family. He was a hair’s breath away from betraying his party when the group’s cleric turned out to be a cultist and she told him to join her and shoot one of the others. If she hadn’t shown her hand and revealed how her plans were going to affect his daughter, he would have done it, because she was the one member of the party he’d actually opened up to. As it was, he ended up fighting for the heroes side—but only because that’s what benefitted his wife and daughter the most, and because he felt betrayed by Gabby, not because it was the right thing to do, or because he had any moral objections to a cult subjugating everyone in the world and killing every deity but their own. Although he would have some objections to *himself* being subjugated so he’d probably fight against them on that alone.

Calio is my most morally bad character. He is, at his core, selfish. He doesn’t do anything for altruistic reasons, ever. There’s always an angle. However that being said, he is better than he used to be. His selfishness extends to the people close to him now—so if there’s something one of the other party members wants, he’ll want that for them as well. Unless their wants directly contradict one of his wants, in which case his wants still take precedent. Calio has been getting better ever since he met Greta. Before her, he wasn’t close to anyone and he didn’t take anyone’s thoughts or feelings into consideration ever. Since meeting her, he’s mellowed out a little and had began actively considering the people he cares about. However this consideration does not extend past the bubble of people he cares about—everyone else can go die in a hole for all he cares. He talked a man out of committing suicide recently—and if the other members of the party hadn’t been there he wouldn’t have bothered and would have just let the man die. Because he only did it because the others were the ones who would care if the man died. So, to reiterate, Calio might do good things sometimes, but he is not a good person.

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I don’t have all of my first drawings of my OCs on my phone as many of the older ones were drawn with pencil/paper and never uploaded, but here’s the ones I do have:

Draven:

Ileark:

Calio:

Mau:

Umbrolus:

Kaius:

Kiyo:

Lucien:

For people with visual references of their OCs: what was the first ever drawing or image of your OC that you made? (Avatar creators like Picrew, customized characters in video games, and AI generated images count.)

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hey! this is chance & here’s the prompt for week 6. what are your oc's bedrooms like? messy? neat? carefully designed? or a collection of their favorite things? you can verbally describe or use photos, whatever you think is best.

Hi Chance! Thanks as always for the fun prompt 😊

I especially like this one because I do think about what a lot of my OCs bedrooms look like but I rarely get to talk about it~

Roland: he created his room personalized when he made his demiplane, the Shining Cathedral, so his room very much reflects his tastes. There’s a large stained glass window of a rising phoenix that opens out to a balcony, a four poster bed with delicate light blue fabric draped from it. The ceiling has a mosaic of another phoenix, set flying against a brilliant sun. He has a desk covered primarily in books and paperwork generally, and a small silver wyvern figurine he picked up in a dragon’s lair during his adventures.

Sai: only recently got a room of her own in Korvosa so she hasn’t had a chance to really personalize it yet. She has a few ragged stuffed animals and dolls she’s picked up during her adventures and patched up, a simple bed, and some animal pelts.

Kiyo: much like Sai their room in the shared home in Korvosa is not very personalized yet. They generally share Lalaith’s room, and keep a few easy to transport alchemical tools there. Their actual home looks a bit like a hoarder’s den due to their century living there and just naturally accumulating things. There’s just a general sense of clutter, at least in the upstairs rooms, they keep the downstairs better maintained as that’s where patients typically are treated. Their bedroom is a bit like Howl’s from Howl’s Moving Castle, just miscellaneous stuff collected from over the years everywhere. Lalaith has determined she is going to help them declutter.

Calio: his room in the Dancing Hut was created to his preferences, so it’s gothic styled with high vaulted ceilings and lit by sconces along the walls that are stylized coming out of skulls. There are large windows covered by thick black drapes which overlook a snowy landscape outside (all illusory since they’re in the Dancing Hut). His bed is extremely large (*specifically* large enough for a winter wolf in their wolf form to fit comfortably with a human also on the bed), it’s a four poster with silky black sheets and an excessive number of black and red pillows. On the wall behind the bed is a large painting of an icy landscape with a full moon and an aurora across the sky. He has a book shelf with reading material and a few trinkets. Most importantly, in the mouth of a skull on one of the shelves is a button that makes the bookshelf open, revealing his hidden alters to Norgorber and Urgathoa.

In Grimm Labyrinthus Calio’s room is nearly identical to his room in the Dancing Hut, except the windows all reveal a landscape from different places Calio has been on his journeys: overlooking Rasputin’s prison camp in Russia with the spectral cathedral finally bound to the material plane, a dark icy landscape with a fortress in the distance that Dragonkin swoop in and out of on Triaxus, the bone covered gateway to Whitethrone where he first met Greta, a clearing in Taldor with a portal looming ahead spewing Irriseni winter cold all around.

Draven: she lived in barracks for the last year so she didn’t have the luxury of decorating, and she had to keep her quarters up to a certain standard. Since retiring with Leto and building their own home together, she’s had to figure out what she likes after years of just focusing on being Iomedae’s sword and shield and little else. She keeps some house plants in their room to brighten things up, although she is not very good at keeping them alive. She and Leto both keep their personal weapons and armor stored close at hand—just incase. Their bed is simple, just a regular bed large enough for both of them, nothing fancy, not a four poster or anything like that. Not that they didn’t at least consider a four poster bed, but Draven might have pointed out she’d probably break the posts during *certain* activities given her let’s say above average strength. Leto has a number of figurines on display—Draven thinks they’re cute (and that Leto’s cute when he gets all info dumpy about them). They also have at least one cat, and have little ledges/shelves built for the cat to jump up onto at various points around the walls.

[kiyo-alvara-blog]

Kiyo mood board

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After watching Hadestown my friends and I were talking about our Pathfinder characters and whether or not they’d manage to not look behind if in Orpheus’ position.

Roland: he would not look behind, he is a person of faith and a very calm rational person, he would trust that his loved one is behind him.

Kiyo: There is some debate on this, but I think Kiyo would not turn around, purely because Kiyo is too stubborn to let a god win.

Kaius: Would not have made a deal with Hades, would have attempted to shoot him in the head. But in the universe where that’s impossible and he has to, he would turn around. He wouldn’t be able to stand the uncertainty and the quiet, not knowing if Esmalda was actually with him and okay.

Umbrolus: Is too protective of Kleio, would turn around almost immediately. Assuming he doesn’t turn to violence immediately to save Kleio a-la Kaius above.

Draven: It would be difficult, but she would not turn around. She is too stubborn to fail at a trial set before her, especially one involving Leto.

Calio: He is determined and intelligent, but he doesn’t trust like that. He would make it almost to the end, but would turn around if he didn’t have some way of being certain that Hades had been telling the truth that he was letting Greta go free with him.

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Roland: meeting Sarenrae face-to-face (too bad about what happened a few hours later >_>)

Kiyo: Star gazing with their father, and being told stories of heroes by him. Learning alchemy from Dr Crowe.

Sai: meeting Hayden and Orda.

Kaius: the birth of his daughter.

Umbrolus: His and Kleio’s wedding

Draven: Playing violin for Melody while she dances. The moment when Draven first saw Leto again after Iomedae resurrected him.

Ileark: Simple moments from his childhood. Stargazing, helping to prepare for the Swallowtail Festival, the memory of his mother’s cooking.

Calio: When he admitted the truth to Greta, and she accepted him wholly as he is. This was the moment he fell in love with her.

Mau: Walking into his new home for the first time when he was adopted by his mothers. There has never been anything else that created quite the same mix of wonder, joy, and fear at the same time.

What memory is most precious to your character?

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So yesterday we had an awesome Pathfinder game where our PCs were reverted to children in a dreamscape by The King in Yellow. This inspired me to make hero forge figures of all my previous PCs (plus Chammady and Eccardian) as children.

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I saw an OC question that’s what is their first memory and I like that one so Let’s do it for all my pathfinder gremlins:

Roland: Realizing that he is not going to be adopted by anyone good and loving in a place like Westcrown and he’s more likely to end up a devil’s sacrifice, so he began planning to run away. Then when he did he fell in with some other street kids who helped him learn how to survive on his own on the dangerous streets of Westcrown.

Kiyo: Stargazing with their father as a young child, and asking questions about the constellations.

Sai: One of her many magic lessons from her Mamma.

Lucien: Hiding under the bed with his siblings when a wild griffin breached their island’s protections and attacked the village, and subsequently his father being critically injured.

Kaius: Playing a prank on one of his younger siblings and getting in trouble for it.

Umbrolus: TheWandering into the woods outside their home because he was bored, even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. He was attacked by some roaming devils, but his parent swooped down and saved him before they could actually harm him.

Draven: Her earliest clear memory is of her family members’ horrific deaths—the rest is a bit hazy due to trauma—it’s not that she doesn’t remember her childhood entirely, but it’s all very vague and distorted. She doesn’t know which parts she remembers accurately and which parts she’s idealizing.

Calio: He has scraps of memory of being kidnapped by a Winter Witch and the horrible nightmares he had afterwards of some sort of ritual, but his first clear memory is of his family fleeing Irrisen, across the dangerous Realm of the Mammoth Lords and the Hold of Belkzen, and eventually settling in Ustalav.

Mau: His earliest memories are of him and his brother in an orphanage in Riddleport, his brother helping him because of his bad leg while they played a game together.

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I saw a post that said something about the thin line between ‘I would die for you’ and ‘I would kill for you’ and it got me thinking about which category each of my OCs fall into for their loved one (romantic or otherwise)

I would die for you: Roland, Kiyo, Lucien, Draven

I would kill for you: Sai, Haruki, Ileark

I would die for you, I would kill for you, I would put myself at your mercy. I would do anything for you: Kaius, Umbrolus

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What I expected vs how my Pathfinder PCs turned out.

Roland:

What I expected: Angsty redemption arc of a flawed person trying to be a better man

What I got: Angsty redemption arc of a flawed person trying to be a better man while also being the mother hen to a bunch of reckless adventurers. Also he turned out to be undead all along which was a surprise to everyone involved.

Sai:

What I expected: Timid bat witch raised by a hag with questionable morals learning how to people while hiding from said mother.

What I got: Timid bat girl latched onto the most morally dubious party member and adopted him as her surrogate brother. Her morality got a bit dark in the process. She turned someone into a bug.

Kiyo:

What I expected: Being a plague doctor, kicking drug dealers’ butts, trying to cure death, and maybe a little distain for the gods.

What I got: Vigilante justice, panic attacks, existential crisises, falling in love with a cleric of the god of death and having to re-examine everything they stand for. Still a plague doctor who hates drug dealers when they have down time though.

Lucien:

What I expected: Happy fun time adrenaline junkie gambler cleric for a one shot.

What I got: Oh no it was longer than a one shot and that means I started thinking about motivations. Oh no there’s deeper reasons he’s like this. Oh no I made it angsty again.

Haruki:

What I expected: Fallen hero assassin drow, very cool

What I got: Fallen hero drow rogue who is very angry and insecure. Has the temper of Edward Elric being called short.

Kaius:

What I expected: Spend half the campaign telling lies that subtly conflict with each other until the other players start to notice the discrepancies, then let them try to get the truth out of him that he was just working to get money for his sick daughter and lord because he didn’t want any enemies he made coming after her or her mother. I expected him to lie about everything to the party at every turn, and to spend a lot of time trying to keep his stories straight and subtly failing.

What I got: I happened to choose the city for his family to be from that we’d be visiting session 1, and by the end of the *first* session we’d broken into the museum Kaius’ ex wife was performing at for the opening of an exhibit, stole the center piece of the exhibit which turned out to be a bowl that could turn water into a medicine that could cure any ill, Kaius jumped out of a moving bus in the middle of a car chase with the bowl to get it to his daughter to cure her illness, and the next day he confided his entire backstory to the party’s cleric as thanks since she’d entrusted him with the artifact despite barely knowing him. Then later it turned out she was brainwashed and part of a cult wanting to hand the world over to a god of slavery and forced perfection, so doing so *did* end up putting his ex and daughter in danger. Oops. In between point A and point B though, without the weight of worrying about his daughter’s health and safety, Kaius ended up loosening up and without a goal in the party beyond owing the cleric, he decided to make his own fun and started pranking the other party members and starting harmless amusing rumors wherever they went for the shits and giggles.

Umbrolus:

What I expected: Tiefling who thinks he’s a dragon and struggles with his innate rage from his oni ancestry.

What I got: Tiefling who thinks he’s a dragon and struggles with his innate rage, who met a weird cute smart Lashunta bard in the woods before the campaign even began, and then decided against my will as his player that he was going to fall in love with them and protect them forever. And then he did.

Draven:

What I expected: Emotionally broken child soldier demon slayer who thinks he brings death to those who get close to him happy fun times.

What I got: Emotionally broken child soldier demon slayer who *is convinced* he brings death to those who get close to him…who also happened to be the only Iomedean near the Chosen One when he died prematurely, and said Chosen One was also his friend whose shattered soul vouched for his capabilities, so now he’s the only one who can wield the holy blade that should not have been his in the first place. Said holy blade doesn’t really like him much. Also he’s acting captain of his unit now. He did not ask for this responsibility.

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Kiyo in formal wear, an outfit I designed for them a few years ago when Critical Role had Vex and Percy’s wedding episode and I felt like drawing a bunch of my own PCs in formal outfits.

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Hello, dear! You've been visited by the random character question fairy! :D ~☆

What does happiness mean to your character? (To be content, to have won, to have something to be proud of, etc.?) Why? Does their definition of happiness change with time?

Thanks for the ask ☺️ My number of OCs I decided to answer for started to get long so answers under the cut.

Roland: Happiness is the time spent with his found family, the satisfaction of hard work paying off, and finally getting to rest at the end of it all knowing he did well and left the world better many centuries after his time should have been up.

Kiyo: Happiness is the joy of discovery, both scientific and in nature. It is the feeling they get after helping someone who was in need, be it with a doctor’s medicine or a vigilante’s blade. Happiness is Lalaith’s sense of humor bringing a smile to their face no matter how terrible the joke may be.

Sai: Happiness is seeing Luka flying through the night sky. It is the smell of freshly planted flowers in a community garden for everyone to enjoy. It’s spending time with Hayden and Gaeron and Icarus, and it’s her found family together and getting along despite their differences. It’s being free of her past and forging a future free of nightmares and darkness, or if it’s shrouded in darkness it’s a darkness of her choosing.

Lucien: Lucien has a hard time imagining future happiness. He puts on a good face but he is severely depressed. All he sees in his future is more of the same cycle of finding temporary joy and growing bored of it, of everything he likes becoming dull and grey. He sincerely believes he is going to die in one final glorious fight against a great rainbow dragon, and that this will be the final great joy in his life, one final burst of color and meaning. Lucien…despite coming off as one of my most carefree characters on the surface because of how he acts, is actually one of the ones really severely hurting the most.

Haruki: Haruki thought becoming human and going back to a sense of normalcy is what would bring him happiness, but he’s beginning to realize there’s no returning to normal. Even if he ever finds a way to get his human form back, things won’t just go back to normal, he won’t just forget how people turned on him when he was turned into a drow, nor will he be able to turn a blind eye to his father’s atrocities in the world below Naraku. Not to mention the fact his people’s god condemned him for sins of his bloodline he didn’t have anything to do with, and the only chance at redemption he was offered was giving up his free will entirely and being transformed again, this time into an angel, which he refused, despite knowing he probably doomed himself to be rejected by his people and slowly die to magnetite poisoning. At this point, what will probably bring him true happiness is embracing his new circumstances, which he’s only really rejected due to how his society conditioned him not due to anything he dislikes about the transformation. He just needs to get to a point where he can accept that realization himself. And also curing his magnetite poisoning. Not dying from being turned into a big crystal statue is a really good first step to being happy. Also punching god. Because he’s from a Shin Megami Tensei RP so punching god is going to happen and it’ll just be really cathartic for him I think.

Kaius: He’s achieved his happiness. His daughter’s illness was cured, he’s retired from adventuring and living with his family, he helped to begin redeeming the fallen member of their party he felt like he’d failed, he’s honestly extremely content with where things have ended up in his life. Did Volstat and Hiyi swear revenge for them choosing Gabby over them? Maybe a little. That’s okay. Kaius is at his core a selfish creature, and if he’s chosen a favorite that’s who he’s sticking with. His wife might disagree since she liked Hiyi.

Umbrolus: Being with Kleio makes him happy. Having friends for the first time makes him happy. Traveling the world makes him happy. The fact he’s going to go to the moon someday makes him happy. Umbrolus is very simple in what makes him happy. Friends, love, adventure, new experiences.

Draven: He honestly doesn’t know what would make him happy anymore. He puts on a smile and cracks jokes, but it’s all superficial, actual real happiness isn’t something he’s had in a while. The closest to happiness he currently has is his best friend, Leto, but that’s a bit bittersweet. I can think of one thing that would bring him sincere happiness, but since he’s a D&D character and I haven’t played his story yet there’s something about his story I don’t want to post where my friends might see it and spoil it. I may come back and reblog this answer later to add to it when I can actually talk about it in more detail later, because I do know the answer.

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This is a long one so dragged it out of the tags.

Roland: He doesn’t like having a second “him”. One Roland Terrasold in the world was already one too many some days. What’s worse, he’d feel responsible for this new person who has the face of the person he hates most when he’s at his lowest. It would really fuck with his already fragile mental health to be around them, no matter how his clone actually turns out at a person. But especially if they ended up being an evil clone, that would *really* mess him up badly.

Kiyo: They would be fascinated by a clone of themself. What process was used to create a perfect replica of them, could it be recreated alchemically? Of course they’d also take care of the person, but their scientific curiosity would be very difficult to contain. And admittedly it would open up some very real possibilities for them with their double life as Blackjack, to have a clone around, if they could convince their double to pretend to be them while they’re out playing hero. Maybe they could work out a way for Kiyo to get them started with a new life while they figured out what they wanted to do, and in exchange they just pretend to be the doctor while they’re out helping the city now and then.

Sai: She wouldn’t trust it. She’s a monster, so so is something that shares her face. She would be afraid of it, and think the clone was sent by her Mamma. Only Hayden would have a chance of talking her out of this mindset.

Lucien: …Does the clone want to gamble? Yes? Great, let’s go! He’d be a bad influence on his clone.

Haruki: Kill on sight. Like Sai he immediately doesn’t trust his clone, but he takes much more direct violent action against it. He doesn’t trust these “demon tricks”, something that wears his face can only mean trouble, and he has no problem killing something wearing his new face. Maybe if it had been cloned from his human body he’d have hesitated.

Kaius: Shoot the shit with his clone and try to get him set up with some sort of job. Preferably something more pleasant than what he did for a living most of his life, unless his clone just really wants to do mercenary and bounty hunting work for some reason. Maybe he’ll even give him a job at his bar and just claim they’re twin brothers.

Umbrolus: Confusion, a little suspicion and caution. But ultimately he’d want to help this “other me”. He’d probably give him to his parent to look after like they looked after him as a kid, just until the clone has a full understanding of how things work in the world. It’s safer than dragging a confused newborn clone around on adventures with them.

Draven: She’d be confused at first, but then determine she’s going to protect this new person who somehow came from her. She’d take them into her home and help them get their baring straight and decide what exactly they want to do with themself. Once they move on, she’d keep in touch and make sure they’re doing well as time passes.

Ileark: Guess he has another new brother. Hopefully a clone of a changeling can’t be turned into a hag, that’s the last thing he needs is to worry about Alazhra turning a clone of him instead of him, just worrying over himself is bad enough. Anyways, he’ll take care of him and help him to understand how the world works, both here and in other places where he might decide to go. He’ll warn him about Alazhra just in case, and maybe even pass on his Amulet of Mighty Fists to protect himself—even though claws won’t do anything against a god of nightmares.

What would your oc think of having a clone of themself? How do they think it would go? How would it actually go?

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You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

What influences your character's morality more - their own moral code, or the moral code of the people around them?

Thank you for the ask 😊 I’ll throw in pretty much all my characters into the mix for this one because I love thinking about their morality or lack there of.

Umbrolus: Umber’s moral code is very simple because of his sheltered upbringing. You’re either nice or mean, and either bad or good. You can be mean and good, or nice and bad, but if you’re bad you have to be stopped, and are fair game to be fought against. If you’re good he can work with you and maybe even be friends, even if you’re not always nice (see: Celeste sometimes). If you hurt Kleio, you’re automatically bad. Or his other friends, but Kleio especially. And it is very hard to move from that category in his mind, he holds a grudge. He does tend to look to Kleio for moral guidance to a certain extent because he’s aware he doesn’t really know what’s socially correct in many situations, so he tends to trust their judgement on if someone should be labeled good or bad.

Kaius “Hawke” River: Kaius doesn’t so much care about morality as he does debts. You do something to hurt him or his family, and he’ll hold a grudge and seek vengeance. You do something to help him or his family, and he’ll owe you. Do something to protect his daughter and he’ll lay down his life for you. The closest thing to morality for him outside of that is that he has a soft spot for young people who made bad choices because of their situation in life but who can still turn their lives around. He very much believes in people ability to recreate themselves and to become better, especially young people, and he highly encourages it. As far as who affects his morality...just himself, and maybe his daughter. He’ll definitely try to put a little more effort into doing the ‘right’ thing if she’s around. Usually. Unless he’s teaching her to lie and steal. ‘Because those are useful skills in the real world.’

Roland Terrasold: Roland is pretty set in his ways about his morality, he follows his moral code, which is based on the teaching of Sarenrae, and changing his stance on moral questions is anywhere from difficult to impossible. He believes in redemption, and the ability for anyone who truly wishes to better themselves to do so. He believes a second chance should be offered to those who sincerely seek to atone. He also believes those who do evil gleefully and who can and will never seek to be better deserve to be destroyed before they can do further harm. He believes in protecting the weak and defenseless, and in seeking out evil and corruption and stopping it before it can spread and fester and do more harm. He’s opposed to excessive and gleeful violence, preferring to subdue an enemy or kill them in the most quick and merciful what possible, even if the enemy in question is a particularly vile person. He doesn’t believe in an eye for an eye, vengeance begets more vengeance and doing excessive harm just leads to you being more okay with violence it doesn’t solve any problems or help anyone to be sadistic or take joy in killing. This might have a lot to do with the sort of person his extremely sadistic ex Ashton was. Also due to Valoria’s teachings after Sarenrae’s death, Roland also believes that the use of necromancy is not necessarily evil by default, if used on willing volunteers and towards noble ends.

Kiyo Alvara: Kiyo is extremely set in their way about their morality. Like Roland, they believe in doing the least amount of excessive harm, although unlike Roland they don’t have any qualms about revenge. They don’t believe in harming someone who’s helpless, even if the person in question was a vile person. Although they might make an exception if Rolth Lamm were helpless in front of them. I don’t know if they’d feel bad about it afterwards. That’s pretty personal. They believe in honesty unless a secret or lie is vital to someone’s safety, or the safety of Korvosa as a whole (ie they have no problem with keeping Blackjack’s identity secret since that’s vital to keeping Korvosa safe). They are slow to trust again when their trust has been betrayed, they’ve lived for so long and seen so few people change their innate nature, that it takes a lot for them to believe someone’s changed their ways.

Sai Gwenn: Her morality is extremely black and white, and extremely influenced by Hayden. There are good people and bad people, and the bad people need to be taken care of before they can harm the good people. Failing to get rid of a bad person is itself bad, because it enables bad people to harm more good people. Sometimes good people are in a bad situation which makes them have to do bad things, and those people should be given a second chance to be good in better circumstances. Who is good and who is bad is entirely based on Sai’s perception of them. Her morality is a little fucked up honestly. She’d forgive an assassin despite trying to kill her and her friends because she was conditioned into her position her entire life, but was so angry at a gargoyle for harming her friend that she polymorphed it into a bug and kept it in a jar until her friend was healed, then released it into the wild to inevitably live a short and terrified life trapped in the body of an insect with the mind of an intelligent creature.

Lucien Anasia: Part of me wants to say Lucien doesn’t have a moral code since he decides so much on the flip of a coin due to his worship of luck. But he does have some moral qualms. He believes in helping people suffering in front of him. He believes in sharing, and trying to help people to feel happy, and in leaving people’s lives a little brighter. He wouldn’t feel comfortable doing excessive harm to people, although that’s exactly what his cursed starknife does.

Haruki Himura: Haruki’s morality has been shaken to the core recently. He used to follow the teachings of the Nameless Father, but since being turned into a drow and the Nameless Father turned His back on him, Haruki’s been unmoored. Without something to believe in, he’s pendulum swung in the opposite direction, being willing to assassinate people he doesn’t like, violently slaughter creatures with his crystalline curse, and all around give into his anger and desire to make others hurt the way he currently is. He draws the line at harming innocents. He does harm to those who did harm first. Random civilians deserve to be able to just live their lives.

Khazrae Kulata: Khazrae is an erinyes devil, and as such she doesn’t have much in the way of a moral code. She gets her morality 90% from Maxwell and 10% from the rest of the Shadow Slayers. Her morality typically boils down to ‘if I do this will Maxwell be upset I did’. She sincerely likes the party and she owes them an eternal debt for how they saved her from a millennia of torment, so despite very much being an evil creature by nature, she does sincerely want to do right by them. However since she doesn’t always have a firm grasp on human morality, she does make the wrong call on occasion and does something evil without thinking it’ll be a big deal to everyone else, such as when she helped Claudia to kill a helpless prisoner to help another devil get revenge.

Eccardian Drovenge: Eccardian’s morality is a bit grey at the moment. He spent much of his life manipulated and possessed by his infernal father Mammon, so now that he’s finally free he’s feeling out how he actually feels about things without a literal devil whispering in his ear. He takes a lot of cues from Erik on how to be a better person, and considering whether Erik would be disappointed in a choice does go into his decision making. He’s okay with grave robbing and is gleeful about getting revenge on those who have harmed him. He has no qualms about killing to remove a threat to him and his organization. However he’s not going out of his way to do harm anymore, and is actually trying to funnel his resources into doing good for the city and the country as a whole, to help make things better for tieflings like him and ‘lesser’ citizens as a whole.

Chammady Drovenge: Chammady is a pragmatist. Her morality centers her family—which in this case means her brother and the Shadow Slayers—and anyone outside of them is fair game. She took the lessons of both nobility and the thieves’ guild to heart, and is willing to do what has to be done to protect herself and hers. She is skilled at the double talk of nobility, and the necessary manipulations to navigate politics. She’s good at making others underestimate her, playing the role of vapid noblewoman and leaning into people’s expectations and biases, although she’s done that less since becoming mayor as now she has a position of true power, where a different sort of face is both expected and necessary. Like her brother, she has no qualms about killing those who might obstruct her goals or harm her inner circle. She is fiercely protective of her inner circle.

[parasite-core]

I may have asked this before....? but since you have some new ocs in the works--what kind of smiles do they have? How do they laugh? Are they loud and boisterous? More shy? Or even sinister haha

You have not, and this is a fun one I’ve thought about extensively for some, and one I haven’t thought about for others that I’m going to flesh out on the spot lol.

Roland: Has a small soft smile that’s easy to miss. His laughs are quiet and subtle as well, more a quiet chuckle to himself than a loud open laugh. He keeps his emotions close to his chest, so a lot of his expressions tend to be on the subtle side.

Kiyo: Like Roland they are typically more reserved. They hide their wider smiles behind a hand. However they also enjoy drinking and that causes them to open up quite a bit more, much more open with larger smiles and open laughs, especially at Lalaith’s terrible jokes.

Sai: Small, somewhat grim smiles, and a light almost childish laugh. When she’s really happy her face brightens and she grins big and wide like a regular excited young girl.

Lucien: Big smiles, always big grins that show some teeth. He’s showy. As for laughter…I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever had Lucien laugh. I feel like I must but I can’t remember except maybe completely manic laughter when he almost died once. I almost feel like his laughter is either forced/fake or manic and no in between but I’m really not 100% sure about that.

Haruki: He doesn’t laugh or smile much. He’s my edgelord angst character. But he does on occasion. Usually because of Walter. His smiles are small and fleeting and more likely to be a sarcastic smirk than a sincere warm smile (although the later has happened too). Laughter usually happens when someone (Walter) is doing something stupid for laughs, and it’s a short hard laugh. Also like Lucien he’s not above manic laughter when pushed beyond his breaking point, although I don’t think he’s ever gotten to manic laughter point yet.

Kaius: Kaius smirks. He has a shit eating grin. He’s wolfish. All around he looks like he’s very pleased with himself when he’s got a smirk on his face. Kaius openly laughs. It’s deep, and he laughs with his full chest. If he just pulled a prank on you he might even double over laughing if it was a really good one. He has no shame.

Umbrolus: Umbrolus grins, he has sharp teeth and his grin shows off every one of them. This is not meant to be a threat, he’s just very enthusiastic. Umber giggles. He’s this big strong tiefling barbarian, but when he laughs, he giggles.

Draven: Draven is always smiling, but his smile doesn’t reach his eyes. I’m not 100% set on his laugh yet because I’m still tooling around with his voice, but I think he has kind of a dark laugh, drawn out.

Calio: Calio has a charming but insincere smile. He’s very charismatic, and can put on a charming smile at the drop of a hat, despite his looks being a bit warped from the accidental lichdom. Like Draven I haven’t figure out his voice yet so I don’t know his laugh just yet.

[parasite-core]

I’m in a mood tonight and feel like picking apart my pathfinder characters to look at what themes they explored

Roland: redemption, what would it look like if a bad person riddled with guilt chose to try to be better and atone and was already on their journey to being a better man before starting the campaign, how a person’s childhood and past shapes them, and whether it’s possible to truly pull oneself entirely out of a blood soaked history.

Sai: Mommy issues and self loathing, coming of age, unlearning or embracing the morals of your parents, coping with not living up to the expectations of your parental figure, dealing with social anxiety

Kiyo: Explores how someone long lived feels living amongst people with 1/7 as long a lifespan, specifically their relationship with old age and death as both a doctor and an elf. Grief, survivor’s guilt, revenge, and exploring a regular person dragged into adventure. Later their story organically grew into what it means to be a hero and what you’re willing to do for the greater good vs your own personal morals, especially when you have a duty to others.

Lucien: Meant to be a one-shot character initially, so actual thought going into him came after the fact. He’s grown into an exploration of depression, self-depreciation, unhealthy coping mechanisms, and being incapable of fitting the role expected of you by society.

Haruki: Made to be a fallen hero archetype from the start. Explores being turned on by the religion and the god he worshipped, being embraced by those he’d been taught were evil, and how it’s choices that make one a monster not appearances. (He excuses his actions as being because he was transformed, and that if people are going to see him as a demon he may as well embrace it and act like one. His choices are his own, not the result of what he became, he just excuses it to himself as part of what he is now...wow I did this before I ever watched a single episode of TMA, oops guess Haruki is just angry teenage Jon lol)

Kaius: Created with the idea in mind that I wanted a character who had a good reason to lie about every aspect of his life. Kaius was originally meant to be a habitual liar hiding his past to protect his wife and daughter from any enemies he’d make adventuring. There would have been a running gag that he was an extremely convincing liar but couldn’t keep his lies straight because he’d been lying so often, so he’d slip in small inconsistent details when he got too ambitious with his stories. However his real story came out in the first act of the campaign when the party met his ex-wife and the artifact they heisted turned out to be able to cure his daughter’s fatal illness. So he took the artifact and cured her, and then stuck with the party because he felt like he owed their cleric his daughter’s life for letting him walk out with the artifact with no questions asked. She was the only one he told the truth to, but since all the players already knew his backstory I dropped the gag. Instead Kaius got to just let loose, be a bit of a prankster, and in the end explored trust, revenge, and redemption when the cleric who he’d trusted and swore loyalty to betrayed the party.

Morris: Kind of a joke character, Morris was made primarily to be light hearted, to challenge myself to play a more lighthearted character, and like Kaius was made to be an older character already married and having an established life that got thrown into chaos by other forces. He primarily explores the expectations vs realities of going on a fantasy adventure, and at what point you cross the line from faking being brave and heroic and competent to actually being what you pretended to be.

Umbrolus: My latest character. I don’t know what all his story will explore yet since we’re just starting out. Definitely some unhealthy relationship with negative emotions, and how compartmentalizing bad feelings too much can explode in your face later. Also another one coping with parental issues, this time exploring the feelings of someone who knows his parent loved him and did the best for him, but after leaving home realizing that some of what they did actually was harmful to him in the long run. Also a little of my favorite trope of discovering you’re something other than what you believed yourself to be your entire life. Seriously even though it’s not repeated on this particular list, I use that trope a lot in my other writing.